Chapter Eight: The Journey Back

IV. The Holy Encounter

16 Glory be to God in the
highest and to you because He has so willed it. Ask and it shall be given you, because it has already been given. Ask for
light and learn that you are light. If you want understanding
and enlightenment, you will learn it because your will to
learn it is your decision to listen to the Teacher who knows
of light and can therefore teach it to you. There is no limit
on your learning because there is no limit on your minds. There is no limit on His will to teach because He was created [by unlimited Will in order] to teach. Knowing His function perfectly, He wills to fulfill it perfectly, because that is His joy and yours.

17 To fulfill the Will of God
perfectly is the only joy and peace that can be fully known because
it is the only function that can be fully experienced. When
this is accomplished, then, there is no other experience. Yet
the wish for other experience will block its accomplishment
because God's Will cannot be forced upon you, being an experience
of total willingness. The Holy Spirit knows how to teach this,
but you do not. That is why you need Him and why God gave Him to you. Only His teaching will release your
will to God's, uniting it with His power and glory and
establishing them as yours. You share them as God shares them
because this is the natural outcome of their being.

18 The Will of Father and of
the Son are one together by their extension. Their extension
is the result of their oneness, holding their unity together
by extending their joint will. This is perfect creation by the
perfectly created in union with Perfect Creator. The Father
must give fatherhood to His Son because His own Fatherhood
must be extended outward. You who belong in God have the holy
function of extending His Fatherhood by placing no limits upon
it. Let the Holy Spirit teach you how to do this, for you will
know what it means of God Himself.

19 When you meet anyone,
remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see
yourself. As you treat him, you will treat yourself. As you think of
him, you will think of yourself. Never forget this, for in him you
will find yourself or lose sight of yourself. Whenever two Sons of
God meet, they are given another chance at salvation. Do not leave
anyone without giving salvation to him and receiving it
yourself, for I am always there with you in remembrance of
you.

20 The goal of the
curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is know
thyself. There is nothing else to learn. Everyone is looking for
himself and for the power and glory he thinks he has lost. Whenever
you are with anyone, you have another opportunity to find them. Your
power and glory are in him because they are yours. The ego
tries to find them in yourself because it does not know where
to look. The Holy Spirit teaches you that if you look only at
yourself, you cannot find yourself because that is not what
you are.

21 Whenever you are with a
brother, you are learning what you are because you are
teaching what you are. He will respond either with pain or
with joy, depending on which teacher you are following.
He will be imprisoned or released according to your decision,
and so will you. Never forget your responsibility to him
because it is your responsibility to yourself. Give him
his place in the Kingdom, and you will have yours. The
Kingdom cannot be found alone, and you who are the
Kingdom cannot find yourselves alone.

22 To achieve the goal of the
curriculum, then, you cannot listen to the ego. Its
purpose is to defeat its own goal. The ego does not know this,
because it does not know anything. But you can know this, and
you will know it if you are willing to look at what the ego
has made of you. This is your responsibility, because once you have really done this, you will accept the Atonement
for yourself. What other choice could you make? Having made this
choice, you will begin to learn and understand why you have believed
that when you met someone else, you had thought that he was
someone else. And every holy encounter in which you enter
fully will teach you this is not so.

23 You can encounter
only part of yourself because you are part of God, Who
is everything. His power and glory are everywhere, and you
cannot be excluded from them. The ego teaches that your
strength is in you alone. The Holy Spirit teaches that
all strength is in God and therefore in you. God wills
no one suffer. He does not will anyone to suffer for a wrong
decision, including you. That is why He has given you the
means for undoing it. Through His power and glory, all your
wrong decisions are undone, completely releasing you
and your brothers from every imprisoning thought
any part of the Sonship has accepted. Wrong decisions have no power because they are not true. The imprisonment which they
seem to produce is no more true than they are.

24 Power and glory belong to
God alone. So do you. God gives whatever belongs to Him
because He gives of Himself, and everything belongs to Him.
Giving of your self is the function He gave you. Fulfilling it
perfectly will teach you what you have of Him, and this will
teach you what you are in Him. You cannot be powerless
to do this because this is your power. Glory is God's gift
to you because that is what He is. See this glory everywhere
to learn what you are.

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